On September 30, 2025, AOL discontinued Internet Access yesterday and terminated its access service while AOL Mail and other products remained.
According to AOL, the AOL dialer and AOL shield have been deprecated and instructed users to turn off legacy connections posted for support references.
Shutdowns will arrive as crypto markets mature through new access channels that will affect only a small portion of US households and change the way investors reach Bitcoin without changing what it is.
Dial-up analogies surface whenever the market rotates or rotates the day set of infrastructure, but dial-up was an access modality to the network, not the network itself.
So, in short, noBitcoin will not be exchanged like a dial-up.
However, let's dive into why and where the actual comparison of internet and bitcoin adoption remains valid.
Bitcoin is a financial asset and a basic payment protocol.
If you are parallel to AOL in cryptography, it is a set of custody bottom frontlines, replacement lamps, and two-layer user experiences that spin as technology and regulations move.
The network connected to the dial-up is the internet, which has persisted and expanded beyond the broadband and mobile generation.
According to the International Telecommunications Union, around 5.5 billion people in 2024, or around 68% of the world, are online, reminding us that networks will expand while edge access changes.
A proper crypto mapping handles ETFs, stablecoins, and layer-2 as access rails that can expand participation, rather than as an alternative to the basic financial layer.
The remaining footprint of the dial-up provides a perspective on sunset dynamics.
In the 2023 US Community Survey, approximately 163,401 US households reported only dial-ups.
According to the US Census Bureau, these households sit next to much larger stocks of mobile and fixed broadband, highlighting that the long tail of the network's legacy access can coexist with new rails before they eventually retire.
Crypto's Access Mix appears to be similar, with direct self-reliance monitoring, exchange custody, program exposure via ETFs, and a new account extraction model that all serves the same currency protocol.
Capital access shifted at the fastest.
The US Spot Bitcoin ETF has created broadband-like on-ramps for institutions and advisors, converting operational hurdles into brokerage ticker exposure.
For each Farside Investors live tracker, the cumulative net inflow since January 2024 is north of $60 billion, with flow pulsing along macros and positioning rather than disappearing when volatility disappears.
Coinshares' recent weekly notes up to September report on ongoing inflows into Bitcoin and Ethereum products, repeating the risks weekly while maintaining a durable foundation for managed assets.
ETF channels do not replace Bitcoin. It replaces operational friction in a way that dial-ups all provide the same internet after being replaced by cables, fiber and 4G.
The macro provides a background for the cycle. On September 17, the Federal Reserve reduced its target range to 25 basis points to 4.00-4.25%, with authorities highlighting a cautious route to leave options if inflation exceeds its target.
Permanent repository facilities and managed fees were adjusted to new scope and maintained money market plumbing consistent with policy intent, according to the Fed implementation notes.
As inflows to listed products tend to build when real yields are stable and credit spreads stay orderly, allocation channels rather than base layer throughput often set up Bitcoin incremental buyers during this phase of the cycle.
Recruitment data keeps framing honest.
Global cryptocurrency ownership is in the mid-mid-million. According to a 2024 report from Triple-A, around 562 million people held cryptography last year, with nearly 6.8% penetration, the broad regional dispersal and methodological warnings differ from the number of chain-on-chains.
Market sizing at Crypto.com brought ownership close to 659 million in 2024. This should be a reminder that top-down, research-based estimates are different and should be treated as range rather than truth.
On-chain activities differ from price and AUM. GlassNode documents that active address counts are below the 2021 high, despite the growing through ETFs.
By August 2025, the Lightning Network's public capacity had collapsed from a peak above 5,400 BTC, above 5,400 BTC, to about 4,000-4,200 BTC. This absorbs architecture and UX custody accounts and movements that fit into architecture and UX reshuffling as alternative scaling options. The Live Series remains a reference suitable for current readings.
Exchange questions are better tested as a set of vectors rather than as a slogan. One pathway is a financial alternative in payments where stable rocks or future CBDCs control transactions and Bitcoin concentrates as a means of savings.
The second is a functional abstraction, where layers and admin accounts mask the complexity of the base layer as much as copper and modems for web users. The third is competition with the other L1 in payments or in computing niche. This does not automatically remove the valuable role of Bitcoin if the institution's railroads and custody continues to be strengthened.
Each path can be observed with data such as ETP flow, wallet count, stablecoin settlement, and layer capacity. With each Farside and Coinshares, Capital Rail is the most obvious change to date.
A small set of system risks keeps the forward view fixed.
Policy remains a swing factor, such as Stablecoin law, bank connectivity, and adjustments to ETP rules, which can slow flows even when demand is intact.
Macros can replicate assignments as soon as inflation exceeds or re-adds the target. This puts pressure on the Fed's relaxation pathway and lifts the actual yield. The network structure deserves monitoring, particularly pool concentration.
According to B10C's 2025 analysis, around six mining pools account for more than 95% of recent blocks. This is pool concentration rather than final asset ownership, but is related to transaction choice, fee dynamics, and potential MEV concerns.
Execution risk manifests in lightning's routing concentration and channel management. This should be evaluated next to off-channel and custody use, rather than reading it as a singular demand gauge.
Allocation and penetration scenarios are frames from 2026 to 2030 without relying on price targets. The conservative pathways assume an allocation of around 0.5% from global investable assets to Bitcoin, beyond utilities of ETFs, Corporate Treasury and HNW, bringing potential demand of hundreds of billions over the full cycle, with choppy pacing in the case of inflation surprises.
In the basic case, we use a 1% allocation. This creates over 1 trillion demand capacity over time if the custody, clear, and advisory workflow continues to consolidate Bitcoin.
Ambitious cases in the 2-2.5% range require benign macros, scalable market plumbing, and clear policies. This is equivalent to trillions of dollars in capacity over a cycle.
On the user side, by 2030, the range of slow, base, and high speed trucks will be more than 1 billion owners by 2030, depending on the integration of mobile wallets, clarity of regulations, and splitting savings and payments.
ITU baselines help to place their ranges in the adoption curve as the global internet penetration is already near the top half of the S-curve.
The end of a framed dial-up like this makes the argument clear.
The access layer has improved distribution, regulation, and user experience, allowing network or currency-based to withstand.
ETFs, stubcoin, and layer 2 behave like broadband for capital and trading, expanding the addressable base of savings and payments without the need for the exchange of Bitcoin itself.
The original dial-up service from AOL is off, but the internet is still on.
